honesty, knowlege & industry are the qualities which will lead you to the highest emploiments of your country, & to it’s highest esteem, and with these to that satisfaction which renders life pleasant, & death secure.

Chocolate. this article when ready made, and also the Cacao becomes so easily soon rancid, and the difficulties of getting it fresh have been so great in America that it’s use has spread but little. the way to increase it’s consumption would be to permit it to be brought to us immediately from...

I catch this moment to write you a few lines by Mr Fulwar Skipwith who is going from this place in an hour, to embark for London I Recd Toms and Mr Elders, letters by the Mermaid yesterday, and I am concerned very much, to be informed of your Situation, respecting pecuniary Matters but I hope the...

You can Scarcely have heard a Character too high of my Friend and Colleague Mr. Jefferson, either in point of Power or Virtues. My Fellow Labourer in Congress, eight or nine years ago, upon many arduous Tryals, particularly in the draught of our Declaration of Independence and in the formation of...

I send by this conveiance designs for the Capitol. they are simple & sublime. more cannot be said. they are not the brat of a whimsical conception never before brought to light, but copied from the most precious the most perfect model of antient architecture remaining on earth; one which has...

I observe by the public papers that he has brought on a very disagreeable altercation with mr Jay, in which he has given to the character of the latter a colouring which does not belong to it. these altercations, little thought of in America, make a great impression here. in truth it is...

à propos of the Capitol. do my dear friend exert yourself to get the plan begun or set aside, & that adopted which was drawn here. it was taken from a model which has been the admiration of 16. centuries, which has been the object of as many pilgrimages as the tomb of Mahomet: which will give...

Allow me my Dear Girl to profit of the promise you have made me to correspond with me, and as I cannot bear the least shadow of formality between friends, I shall thro’ the whole of this letter endeavour to put away the remembrance of its being the first letter; I hope you will follow my example....

I am very angry with my Dear Jeffy for not having yet answered my Letter and am resolved to be revenged by not speaking to you for 100 years to come if I do not hear from you this very day I like punctual correspondants, therefore in your letter tell me if you can answer me to all my notes—I am...

the city of London, tho’ handsomer than Paris, is not so handsome as Philadelphia. their architecture is in the most wretched stile I ever saw, not meaning to except America where it is bad, nor even Virginia where it is worse than in any other part of America, which I have seen.

I returned but three or four days ago from a two months trip to England ... the gardening in that country is the article in which it surpasses all the earth. I mean their pleasure gardening. this indeed went far beyond my ideas.

the English are still our enemies ... the spirit existing there, and rising in America, has a very lowering aspect. to what events it may give birth, I cannot foresee. we are young, and can survive them; but their rotten machine must crush under the trial.

say ‘there were 10. states present. 6. voted unanimously for it, 3. against it, and one was divided: and seven votes being requisite to decide the proposition affirmatively, it was lost. the voice of a single individual of the state which was divided, or of one of those which were of the negative...

What a stupendous, what an incomprehensible machine is man! who can endure toil, famine, stripes, imprisonment or death itself in vindication of his own liberty, and the next moment be deaf to all those motives whose power supported him thro’ his trial, and inflict on his fellow men a bondage,...

and our own dear Monticello, where has Nature spread so rich a mantle under the eye? mountains, forests, rocks, rivers. with what majesty do we there ride above the storms! how sublime to look down into the workhouse of nature, to see her clouds, hail, snow, rain, thunder, all fabricated at our...

the art of life is the art of avoiding pain: & he is the best pilot who steers clearest of the rocks & shoals with which it is beset. pleasure is always before us; but misfortune is at our side: while running after that, this arrests us. the most effectual means of being secure against...